Correct Pentium 4 Application Procedures For Artic Silver

[pmaddock]

Forum,

I have been having high temperature issues with my cpu lately and have decided to re-do my Arctic Silver application on my chip. I have removed the chip/heat sink/fan assembly and have cleaned both the chip and heat sink with a combination of acetone and denatured alcohol. I have cleaned everything with the solvents using lint-free cheesecloth. Everything looks good and clean. The heat sink and chip are drying as we speak. Can someone tell me the best way to apply the artic silver on both the heat sink and chip exterior. I have a pentium 4, 2.2 ghz Northwood chip, with the stock Intel heat sink. I read the instructions on the Arctic Silver web site, but was a little confused about some of the steps. It mentions applying some of the grease and rubbing it in with a plastic baggy and then removing it prior to applying a little microscopic amount to the chip. Can someone with much experience with P-4 processors give me some specific instructions as how to do this in the best manner. I have vacuumed the exterior of my system, vacuumed my filter, and am ready to go when someone gives me some instructions. What started this was my running high cpu temperatures as of late (52c when idle, 68c sometimes under a load). I have a warm house temp lately when the A/C is not on and have 7 fans in my case (2 sucking air in the bottom front of the case, 2 on the other side bottom, 2 above the power supply, the power supply fan itself - all blowing the warm air out). I also have the cpu fan and the video card fan going. I look forward to forum input and suggestions.

PM

[Cricket]

Hi pmaddock,

You only need very little Artic Silver between the CPU and the heatsink bottom.

I wrap my finger in plastic food wrap and put a tiny dab of Artic Silver on the heatsink. I work it around with my finger to spread it out nicely and then immediately rub the CPU core with whatever Artic Silver is left on the plastic wrap. I make sure the coverage is even and thin (too much Artic Silver is not good as it will hamper thermal transfer). Then I assemble the heatsink onto the CPU socket.

I don't wipe the Artic Silver off the bottom of the heatsink prior to assembly with the CPU.

Cricket

[pmaddock]

Cricket,

I'm having problems. I just attempted what you said with the grease. I fired up the system and went to bios to check my temperature; it read 68c and rising. It got to 70c and I shut the system down. My other temperatures were reading 38c, so something is wrong with my processor preparation. Do you have any more suggestions before I dissemble and start over. Could I have put too much artic silver on or not enough. Does it take a few days for the compound to set.

PM

[Liquid Ice]

Have you checked the instructions on the arctic silver site? It might be that you're putting too thick a coat of arctic silver on the processor. Also, don't leave the grease on the heatsink and see if that helps. It has to be a really thin layer on the processor.

[AlwaysUp]

What motherboard do you have? Some Abit boards had a problem with the CPU temp being reported incorrectly in the Bios but the proggy on their disk reported it much cooler. Oh, just read your stats. You might check out the Abit site for issues with CPU sensor. I don't know about this specific board.

[Liquid Ice]

You guys know if there is an issue with MSI boards? I have an 845G Max board and in the bios it shows 56 idle while in windows it shows as 50-52 idle.

[pmaddock]

I started over and now I'm back to where I was before. I'm running about 58c in the bios and 52c using my Winbond software. I'm not really sure what to do to get my CPU temps in the 40's.

PM

[glc]

Don't worry about it - those temps are well within the safety level for a P4. However, I don't understand why they are that high either. You could try taking it apart again and lapping the heatsink surface to a mirror finish - then use a very sparing amount of AS on only the CPU.

[pmaddock]

GLC,

Things are running about 50c, which I can live with. As I said before, maybe my temp will drop more as the Artic Silver sets. I probably need to run my house at 68F (like during the Winter), and my temps will probably return to what I saw a couple months ago. It's just too hot in Cincy right now.

PM

[Cricket]

Hi pmaddock,

What kind of weather are you having in Ohio now? Are you in a heatwave? What kind of room temps do you have? Your high temps may be attibutable to high ambient temps (unless you're in a air conditioned room).

Cricket

[pmaddock]

Air is on now, but was off earilier. You're probably right, it may be just due to the current hot summer weather.

[glc]

What temp is the system (motherboard) running at? The key is the delta T (difference) between the board temp and the CPU temp. If the delta is over 10 degrees C you have a CPU cooling problem, if it's less, you have a case cooling problem.

[pmaddock]

GLC,

My system temps are currently 38c and 35c, while my cpu temp is 50c. I would guess that my room temp is 28c. My monitored fans are all running at about 3000 rpm's. Like you said, apparently I have a cpu cooling problem. I never have lockups or any heat related failures that I know of, so I'm not going off the deep end yet. I think I will shut down both my computers now, until it is cooler later on tonight. Thanks for the suggestions and have a great 4th.

PM